Eisms

I have a couple of sticky notes laying around my desk with E's latest sayings...

She walked into the foyer and found Gavin (2 yrs old) hiding next to her dresser doing his business.  She exclaimed, "This isn't the potty, Gavin!  You are making my dresser all stinky!"  She then proceeded to explain how he was suppose to go poo in the potty.  Potty-trained by the 3.5 year old.  Lovely.  (12-10-10)

I was emailing one day and she came up to me and said, "Mom, you should buy me my own computer...something to email my husband on."  Not even 3.5 and already asking for her own computer.  (10-27-10)

Merry Christmas!!

We had a fun day!  E got her "Strawberry Shortcake with choking hazards" for Christmas.  She was thrilled.  She also had a grand time dressing up in her new fairy costumes.  A loved all the blocks and all of E's toys, which didn't thrill E.

We spend the day with my family enjoying the day.  We hope you enjoyed yours too!  :)

A Night at the Zoo

  

Last week, we took advantage of the Wonderland of Lights at the Potter Park Zoo.  It was fun!  The entire zoo was decked out in lights.  I'm glad I wasn't on the decorating committee.  I can't imagine how many lights they had up.  It was quite phenomenal.                                                              

We saw a few animals out in the cold...the camel, a hare, the eagles...and we saw everyone inside the Feline and Primate House, Fish House and Reptile House.  We even saw a baby mandrill cozying up to his mom in the Primate House.  It was adorable!  X could have watched the monkey-type animals in the reptile house or the beautiful fish for hours! 

The zoo wasn't just all lit up, but they had all sorts of activities going on as well.  Santa was hanging out.  Several musical groups preformed in different areas.  They had a storyteller.  There was a craft station, face painting and cookie decorating area.  They had 4 types of animals on display so that the kids could see and/or touch, and they gave a great education about those animals, also.  It was very nice.

 

But, I think both kids just loved walking around and looking at all the lights.  X just cackled all night long...he'd try and trudge off into the snow to get the bigger lights.  Although, if he fell, he was stuck until Jut or I retrieved him.  I left his winter boots at home and just let him walk in his booties.  He liked the booties much better, but he's still a bit of a beached whale when he falls down.  E enjoyed picking up the clumps of snow and throwing them and just being outside.

At the end of the evening, we packed up and went for hot cocoa at Pan*era's.  We warmed up and ate some cookies.  It was the perfect end to a wonderful night.  The best part was that both kids fell asleep on the way home and stayed that way until morning!   It was a great night!

We will definitely go back!!

Playing in the Snow

I took the kids outside once the bitterly cold winds let up.   They had so much fun...well, rather E had a wonderful time.  Poor A is virtually immobile once he gets bundled up in the snowsuit, his hands get shoved into mittens, and his little feet get stuffed into snow boots.

E enjoyed making snow angels...she's been doing it since we've had a dusting of snow...she was glad to finally have enough to make 'really good' angels.

 A was a good sport for most of our outing.  He could actually move around a bit on the playscape.  He went down the slide once.  He went for his first sled ride around the yard, but wasn't really impressed with that.  With as much time as he spends in the stroller, I was surprised that he didn't enjoy it more.  However, he did enjoy the swing for a long time, but I couldn't get him out of it with the boots and I had to get Jut to come to the rescue to get him out.  Poor A!

 

E enjoyed playing on the playscape in the snow.  She climbed on it, over it, under it.  She had so much fun playing everywhere in the snow.  She loved the sled.  She loved digging tunnels.  She enjoyed eating her 'snow pizza'. 

Our snow tunnel for the 'animals'

I tried getting a couple of pics of them together again.  Not much luck.  They don't smile together.  Boo.  But we had fun trying.  :)

 

Cookies with Santa

We went and had cookies with Santa yesterday.  It took a few minutes to convince E that she wanted to sit on Santa's lap...and I don't know that she ever told him what she wanted for Christmas.  However, she did tell him that Jut was getting ready for youth group and couldn't make it to say hi.

However, after a few cookies, chocolate covered pretzels and crafts, she warmed right up to him.  She found a tub of costumes and had decided to be an elf.  She loved her elf hat and boots.  Showing them to Santa was a must!

Later, E found a Santa hat and decided that she was Santa.  She went around to all the other elementary aged girls that were wearing reindeer antler headbands and told them that they were her reindeer and needed to pull her sleigh.  They all obliged her imagination...so she had a little passel of reindeer running in front of her.  Crazy girl.  They weren't even girls that she knows...it was funny.  The one little girl came up and told me all about it b/c I missed it as I was changing X's diaper at the time.

X, however, did NOT warm up to Santa at all.  This is an action shot of him running away from the scary, hairy man in the shades, red suit and hat. If we walked too far to that side of the gym, the poor guy would get all distressed.  X was having none of that Santa business.

X did however like the penguins.  He was mesmerized by the lights and movement the entire time E was visiting Santa and making her crafts.  Penguins were much better than Santa!

A touch of summer

 So, I stole my dad's camera again the other day and was looking through pictures and realized that I had missed downloading an entire photo shoot.  I thought a couple of the pictures were too cute to keep to myself.  So, while the snow flies outside, enjoy some pics of summer.

Have you figured out what E is busy doing (other than being adorable, of course)?   I think I've found one of my new favorite places to take pictures.  The barn makes a great backdrop, I think.

Dad and E were out picking blackcaps (a.k.a. black raspberries) and Dad came in and told me I had to come see my daughter.  I went out and she had climbed this piece of driftwood all by herself.  Dad was on the other side of the patch and when he came around...there she was happily sitting and eating.

I had her climb back up for me...so I could she how she got up there.  She got picked a couple of times by the briers she told me...but all the 'good' berries were up there.  So, up she went.

She had a great time picking with G'pa...well, until she got stung by a wasp later in the summer.  But, G'pa 'took care' of that so that it wouldn't happen again.

She picked many more berries than in her bowl...but most of them went straight to her tummy.

and the ones that didn't end up in her tummy immediately, ended up there before she reached the house.  :)

The 3.5 year old E

 I just finished reading my post about E at 3.  Not too much has changed other than she's in love with Strawberry Shortcake these days.  She keeps asking for "Strawberry Shortcake with choking hazards and Strawberry Shortcake without choking hazards" for Christmas.  She's really getting into the commercialism of Christmas this year...she loves looking through catalogs and telling you that she needs everything in them.


We still visit the "hibary" (library) and eat "hogurt" (yogurt)...every once in awhile an "y" sound will make it out but usually it is still the "h".  I'm going to miss her cute speech when she gets those two consonants where they belong.

She's very much into 'boys' and 'girls' right now.  She'll say around the house, "Mom, the girls need to stick together."  Then, she'll follow me everywhere.  She wants a sign for her door that says, "No boys allowed."  She doesn't even want Jut in her room sometimes.  Right now, Mom is the be-all, end-all for her.  She wants Mom to do everything for her.  Dad is feeling a bit like chopped liver.  She told me yesterday, "Mom, I like you because you have soft hair and you talk nice."  She told Jut he didn't like her today because he "didn't have girl parts".  Crazy girl.  She also likes to count up the number of boys and girls in a room.  Gender is very notable for her right now.

She's becoming more independent all the time.  She made friends with one of our college-aged girls at camp this summer.  She fell in love with "Hindsey" (or Lindsey).  She talks about her all the time.  She loves seeing her at church and will run up to her and give her a hug.  It is sweet. 

At story time at the library, she's one of the leaders when playtime rolls around.  She likes to tell the other kids what they are playing and how they will play it.  Sometimes they listen and sometimes not but it doesn't seem to bother E either way.  She'll keep playing regardless.  One little guy named Jackson follows her around everywhere.  He thinks she rules the place.  It is kind of funny.

She likes to do things by herself and have a 'day off'.  She's looking forward to Christmas and having her 'day off' with G'ma and G'pa.  She baked cookies over Thanksgiving and was quite distraught that she wasn't going to be able to spend the night there and have her 'day off'. 

A walking brother is keeping her on her toes.  All of her favorite toys have been moved up to her bedroom to keep X away from them.  She loved opening all his b'day presents and playing with them.  X got a ride-on truck and E loves pulling him around on it.  They are starting to 'play' some together...usually however, it is usually E playing and getting frustrated by X's interference because he just wants to do everything that she is doing.

Wordless Wednesday...(well, almost)

Aftermath of going down the slide face first...notice the dirt on his hands.  He did try to catch himself

He was ready to do it again after getting cleaned up a bit

Fun outside...

The weather is cooling down...but we are still having fun playing outside.  Or maybe we are just trying to get X down to 1 nap a day and being outside keeps the *grumps* (mostly) away while we are waiting for lunch time to roll around.

 I was attempting another *cute* picture of the two of them together...yet another miserable fail.  X doesn't enjoy getting pictures taken with E, I guess.  Besides that I failed to notice that E's hat was completely covering her eyes.  Oh well.  Guess we'll try again another day.

 Our new play structure....the 'pirate ship'.  Thankfully it isn't too high off the ground.  X has already tumbled off of it at least 4 times.  The one time was quite impressive...he managed to flip off of it and land on his back.  However, he isn't climbing up on it like he use to.  Now he's content playing under it (the keel of the ship?) unless we put him on it.

 Whoops...make that fall #5...well, Jut *kind of* caught him.  One of these days, he'll learn to slide down the slide and not try to walk down it.  He does just fine at the bigger slides in the park but for some reason doesn't do so well on this one.

 Poor guy.  He thinks the photo shoot is over...Mom's not giving in.

 My adorable little guy.  "Peak" gets a smile out of him almost every time.

 Happy guy with Dad.  He looks like he's been having a great time if the trails of dirt and snot are any indication.

 Loves swinging almost as much as E!

My precious 3.5 year old...good pics of her are hard to come by these days.  Her modeling days are few and far between.  But, she still LOVES her swing!

E's Thanksgiving List

At story time today, the take-home craft was to make a turkey.  Miss Tina gave the kids feathers for the tail or paper for them to make their own feathers and write what they were thankful for on the feathers.  E opted to take both feathers and the paper.  Once X went down for his nap, E and I sat down to make her turkey.  She colored him and glued on his feathers while I cut out a few 'feathers' so that she could write down the things which she was thankful for...her list cracked me up a bit, so I thought I'd share.  If I'm good I'll take a picture of her lovely turkey and post it.  But here's her list, in order of dictation to me:  1.  Jesus  2.  God  (She's a good pk...or sunday school participant,  isn't she?!)  3.  Crayons  4.  Grapes (which would make sense if we'd been eating them lately but its been weeks since there's been grapes in the house!)  5.  Paper  6.  Birds 7.  The Sky and finally 8.  my house.  Sometimes I'd love to get inside her brain and she how it all works because she intrigues me!

So, that just got me thinking about my top 8 things I'm thankful for...
1.  Health (mine and my families)    2.  Supportive husband   3.  Wonderful children  4.  The ability to stay home and enjoying life with them  5.  A warm and cozy house  6.  Amazing extended family  7.  Great church family  8.  All of the personal freedoms that we enjoy without thought 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

An evening at the park

X's birthday celebration

X's b'day celebration...a few weeks later. He wasn't too much of a fan of the flaming cake...however, once the flames were out, he gobbled the cake (& ice cream) up. He loved his balloons, the ribbons and the big box. The toy inside the box is pretty fun now that its put together (it was fun watching G'pa put it together) and has batteries...but the box is still fun too. His big sister opened his presents and thought it was great. X just wanted to play on the boxes...sounds like a typical 1-year old b'day party, doesn't it?!